Friday, December 24, 2010
The citizen armies of America
Food for thought for the gun controllers out there:
The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That’s great. There were over 600,000 hunters.
Allow me to restate that number. Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world – more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined – deployed to the woods of a single American state to help keep the deer menace at bay.
But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan’s 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.
These numbers are part of why those of us who grew up in rural parts of the country simply don’t comprehend the gun-grabbing impulses of some. Every single year, millions of Americans carry high power rifles into the woods and more or less do as they please – some shoot at deer, some just drink a lot – and it is a complete non-story. The number of people injured and killed by these guns will pale in comparison to those injured and killed in driving accidents during the same time period.
And, of course, we make for a hard target. Who would want to invade such a country?
14 Comments:
By 
SR, at
Sat Dec 25, 12:48:00 AM:
Talk about your well regulated militia......
By Don Cox, at
Sat Dec 25, 05:04:00 AM:
Impressive statistics.
What do the deer think about it?
Happy Christmas !
By Noumenon, at
Sat Dec 25, 05:23:00 AM:
Honestly a population that all had AK-47s and knew how to build IEDs would be a lot scarier... and it still wouldn't really stop an invader with jets and tanks. The only thing is it would make it tougher for the invader to pacify the country -- if they were too draconian people would start shooting back and crushing that militarily would reduce your legitimacy and draw people's attention to how oppressive you're being.
By wayne fontes, at
Sat Dec 25, 08:36:00 AM:
By 
, at
Sat Dec 25, 08:58:00 AM:
Noumenon ... I think we'd come up #1 by that measure also. Saddam learned about is 'air force' the hard way.
On guns ... by the time Clinton was in office, there'd been somewhere in the range of 250 thousand charged under the Brady bill, and a handful (fewer than 25) convictions. Also under him we had a one-week law enforcement effort to round up deadbeat dad's and it rounded up thousands of unregistered sex offenders. Imagine what a one week authorization for lawful American gun owners to assist in rounding up scum and illegals might yield? Free fire zone on the gangs and anyone who chooses to shoot upon such a militia member.
Merry Christmas all.
By JPMcT, at
Sat Dec 25, 03:21:00 PM:
I suspect the Wisconsin statistics would be a little different if the deer were armed.
The deer, however, having no arms, are basically defenseless against an organized incursion within their own borders.
Just like we would be without gun ownership.
By , at
Sat Dec 25, 03:23:00 PM:
"Talk about your well regulated militia......"
You don't suppose the founders actually knew a thing or two about such things, do you? I'm surprised this prepositional phrase gives the gun-control 'thinkers' such a hard time. It seems *somebody* back when thought it a good idea to have a populace that knew how to properly employ guns, perhaps even as an obvious precondition to members of said populace serving in a militia (which, after all, back then tended sometimes to be rather ad hoc affairs.)
By , at
Sat Dec 25, 05:54:00 PM:
Not a single deer?
Not a single deer?
Not a single deer?
Those PETA folks are getting good.
By reg, at
Sat Dec 25, 06:04:00 PM:
Yamamoto had an opinion on that, he viewed the US as a very hard target " a rifle behind every blade of grass".
your founding father's were very wise, they had faith in the people, that's why they left guns(power in the words of mao)in the hands of the people.
By , at
Sun Dec 26, 09:56:00 AM:
And, of course, we make for a hard target. Who would want to invade such a country?
There are a lot of people hard at work trying to "fix" that...
By Progressively Defensive, at
Sun Dec 26, 10:56:00 AM:
Pennsylvania! Don't try it with the Keystone State ... ready!
My favorite story from the Revolutionary War, one Tigerhawk will like, is when Congress would not pay the troops, General Washington told any deserters they'd be hanged (and some were). The PA regiment up and left anyway that winter because of the wages being withheld. Washington gave chase. The PA regiment took Princeton hostage, the town and the townfolk. Washington let them go without sanction. I think it was 1780 or 1781.
That's a lesson for you all. Pennsylvania ... don't tread on us ... and don't welch either ... and don't litter.
By , at
Sun Dec 26, 11:29:00 AM:
Mexican drug gangs have been invading the border states with impunity. Of course, the people aren't yet involved in defense of those states having mistakenly assumed that having given the authority to government to defend the borders and funded the various national guards for the purpose, it would be done. Funny how badly it's worked out.
By Mike Landfair, at
Sun Dec 26, 03:13:00 PM:
I had no idea there were so many hunters!
By , at
Tue Dec 28, 08:08:00 AM:
In my remote corner of central Jersey, we have in the fields surrounding our house a herd of some 40 deer, who somehow didn't get the memo on property rights. You can imagine what my front "lawn" looks like.
Anyway, this being Jersey, we don't address the deer problem with paltry measures like small arms fire. We daily deploy mechanized columns to roll over these invaders. And to terrify the survivors, we leave the dead, rotting carcasses where they fall.
